


Silenced by Her Smile

by pristineungift



Category: Legend of the Seeker
Genre: F/M, Family, Fluff, Next Generation, Romance, Smut
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-03-14
Updated: 2012-03-14
Packaged: 2017-11-01 23:11:22
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,926
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/362305
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pristineungift/pseuds/pristineungift
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Written for prompt “Older!Renn/Anyone, Listeners are great in bed because they can hear your every desire.” This instant the Crown Princess of D’Hara began thinking of Renn in a new light, he knew. Renn/Richard and Kahlan’s daughter.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Silenced by Her Smile

  


The instant Princess Elspeth began thinking of Renn in a new light, he knew.  
  
“Renn, it’s good to see you.”  
  
Smiling, Renn bowed from the waist, looking up at the throne of D’Hara. “It’s always a pleasure to visit the People’s Palace, Lord Rahl.”  
  
Richard stood, walking down the steps of the throne dais to take Renn’s hand. “You know to call me Richard.”  
  
They stood in the main audience hall of the palace of D’Hara. Princess Elspeth, Richard’s eldest daughter and the crown princess, stood to the side of the throne watching Richard and Renn’s reunion.  
  
Renn very carefully did not react to her thoughts. He had many years of practice in keeping a straight face.  
  
“Thank you for coming so quickly,” Richard was saying. “You know Confessors can’t read the Mord’Sith, but they shouldn’t be able to hide anything from you. I have to know if they’re telling the truth. I refuse to punish them all as my brother would have.”  
  
 _A flash of regret, an image of two boys playing, of Darken Rahl much older, his black hair streaked with strands of grey._  
  
“I’ll do all I can, Richard,” Renn assured him, squeezing Richard’s hand before drawing his own away.  
  
 _His hair is so red, a flash of Renn and Elspeth naked, intertwined, the way he would look with his cock in his hand, lips forming Elspeth’s name._  
  
As casually as he could manage, Renn turned his gaze on Elspeth, only half listening as Richard detailed the problem that had led to him calling for Renn, the Listener. Elspeth looked very regal in her Rahl red gown, a circlet affixed in her black hair. Regal, and beautiful – much how her mother had looked when Renn first set eyes on her, over twenty years ago  
  
Meeting his eyes, Elspeth smiled at him, and Renn was bombarded with images of her sitting on the throne with her legs spread, him kneeling between her thighs. He was suddenly immensely grateful for the deep green wizard robes he had taken to wearing upon completion of his training, for they hid his body’s reaction from all in the hall. He couldn’t keep his lips from twitching.  
  
 _Oh Creator, he heard that. Stupid stupid stupid, probably never wants to see me again. Who wants to know a Confessor thinks about him – No don’t think about it! Think about… ponies. Riding ponies. Images of Renn riding a horse, naked in the moonlight, Elspeth riding him in an altogether different way – Keeper take it, sorry sorry!_  
  
Elspeth looked away, biting her lip.  
  
 _Is he listening? Why is he looking at Elspeth? Is something wrong with Elspeth that I should know? An image of Kahlan’s worried face._ Richard’s thoughts interrupted Renn’s very inappropriate perusal of his daughter.  
  
“Elspeth will show you to the council chamber, Renn,” Richard finished with a speculative look between his daughter and his friend. _Maybe it’s something she needs to discuss with him. He has always been like an elder brother to her. A happy image of them all as a family._  
  
Upon hearing that thought, Renn felt he had been showered in cold water. He _had_ been like an elder brother to Elspeth. He was ten years her senior. He knew more about her than perhaps even her parents, privy to the thoughts around him as he was.  
  
He knew that her favorite color was pink, though she told the world it was Rahl red. He knew that she was aroused and terrified by her power of confession. He knew her secret shame – her jealousy that her parents shared a love that she would never be able to experience for herself, for such things were what tales were made of. He knew that Richard and Kahlan had named her Elspeth because she was conceived on the steps of the Pillars of Creation and the name meant ‘consecrated by the gods’ – something that Elspeth herself didn’t know.  
  
He knew that he loved her, but her thoughts this day were making him question what kind of love it was.  
  
Elspeth approached and he offered her his arm, as he had many times before. She took it, though this time she blushed and her thoughts were a whirling mass of images of the two of them naked and determined monologues about the wheat crop that year – her attempt to be polite to him. She thought about how strong his arm felt, and how nice he smelled, before derailing herself into a mental recitation of all the minor houses of nobility.  
  
Renn had to resist preening, just a little.  
  
When they reached the council chamber, Elspeth imperiously ordered the guards they were not to be disturbed until she called for the Mord’Sith to be brought in, and shut the thick oak doors behind them. As soon as they were alone, her royal serenity fell away, her face shifting into what could only be called a mask of horror.  
  
“Renn, I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to, well, that is. I did mean to but... I’m sorry you had to hear all that,” she began.  
  
“You don’t have to apologize for your thoughts,” Renn returned kindly, taking her hand in his and raising it to his lips to kiss it. “If I wanted apologies for the things I’ve heard people think, I should never sleep for listening to them.” He winked, playing the imp, hoping to set her at ease with memories of games they had played when they were both younger.  
  
 _His lips are soft, an image of his lips against her breasts, his voice is always so warm, that’s just made me wet – The Amnell family has held the seat of the Mother Confessor three times in the last ten generations, the line is traced matrilineally, this is so embarrassing, at least he doesn’t know, an image of Elspeth pleasuring herself with her fingers as she cried Renn’s name._  
  
Renn would have had to be made from stone not to be affected. He took a step back from Elspeth, his hardened length pressing at the front of his robes, and sat at the council table before he could do something that he would surely regret.  
  
But would he regret it? Elspeth was beautiful, his friend, and he trusted her. No, he mustn’t. It would be a betrayal of the trust Richard and Kahlan had placed in him all these years. A betrayal of the vows he had taken to use his power wisely, with restraint.  
  
Elspeth groaned in mortification and covered her face with her hands.  
  
“I’m sorry, Elsie, that your thoughts can never be private with me around.” Renn smiled wanly, looking past Elspeth – beautiful, curvaceous, wet for him right this moment Elspeth – to the arched window in the far wall. He tapped his temple with two fingers, “I can ignore things, reduce the thoughts of others to a low rumble, but I’m afraid they’re always there. I can’t _not_ hear.”  
  
“I know,” she said, taking the seat at the head of the table, to Renn’s right. “It’s why we’ve always been so close. You understand never being able to stop being what you are.”  
  
 _The look of fear in men’s eyes whenever Elspeth passed near, their reluctance to touch her. Will I always be alone? An image of Renn surrounding by light, smiling, reaching out his hand, Elspeth taking it, the two embracing.  
  
This is what love looks like._  
  
Renn wasn’t sure if that last thought was Elspeth or himself.  
  
“Renn, I want –”  
  
“Elsie, we can’t –”  
  
Elspeth reached across the table and Renn took her hand in both of his own, not certain what to do, what was right, where his thoughts ended and hers began.  
  
It terrified him.  
  
She leaned forward, her breasts straining in the tight bodice of her dress, trying to kiss him. Renn turned his head away, his cock twitching.  
  
 _Like all the others, afraid of me, doesn’t want me, who would want a Confessor? An image of Elspeth ruling D’Hara alone, a glassy eyed man turned mate fawning over her every wish, the sudden horrible realization that what she wanted from Renn would condemn him to that very fate, I will not cry, I will not cry. I am the future Lady of D’Hara, I don’t have the privilege of tears._  
  
“Elsie, no!” Renn breathed, turning back to her, feeling wretched at her thoughts. Knowing she needed to see, to feel that he did not fear her, he pushed his chair closer, awkwardly took her in his arms, almost pulling her into his lap. “It isn’t what you are, but _who_ ,” he explained quickly, voice filled with a quiet intensity. “I’m older than you, a Listener, I can’t take advantage… and people would say I was seeking a throne for myself, and then there’s your parents, they trust me, and –”  
  
Elspeth cut him off with a kiss, pulling at his shoulders, squirming to get closer to him. She ran her fingers through his hair, and then he was kissing her back, and she was in his lap with his erection pressed against her stomach, and he was moaning into her mouth and she was thinking about how hard he was and how she wanted to grind against him, how desperately she wanted him to lay her down on the table and –  
  
They broke apart, both of them panting. “I’m sorry. You’re right. We can’t,” she said, tears in her voice as she thought of how horrible it would be for Renn to be confessed. How it would kill her to see it happen to him.  
  
How she would kill herself to free him.  
  
“No,” Renn replied firmly, still breathless. He was agog at the depth of feeling between them, surprised at her thoughts and his own. He laughed suddenly – he was the Listener, the Mind Healer, the tribes of the desert called him Thought Walker and He Who Knows, but Elspeth Rahl, his little Elsie could still surprise him!  
  
He didn’t think that would ever change.  
  
Maneuvering Elspeth in his arms so he could reach for the leather satchel that hung from his belt, Renn brought forth his Rada Han.  
  
 _A Rada Han? Sudden hope, but how? They’re so expensive, I could never justify the amount of the treasury, the money meant for the people’s welfare it would take to buy one for myself. Mother offered, but I always said no, how long has he had this?_  
  
“The Sisters of the Light put it on me when I was a child,” Renn answered her unasked questions. He did not speak of it often, but Elsie deserved this, to know. To be on more equal footing. “I still keep it. Use it when the voices are too loud.”  
  
Elspeth took the ring of metal, holding it reverently. _It’s a collar yes, but it’s also freedom. I’ll chain myself to free myself. Poetic, in a way._ Out loud she said, “Why have you never shown me before?”  
  
Renn looked away, a lump in his throat, knowing he could not lie. “I didn’t want you to think less of me.”  
  
“I don’t.” She moved to straddle him, her skirts bunched up around them both, and rocked her hips against his, her thoughts telling him just how much of a great man she considered him to be.  
  
Together, they placed the Rada Han around her throat, gently locking it in place. Renn didn’t ask Elspeth if she trusted him. He knew that she did.  
  
And then her thoughts were on fire, a maelstrom of passion she no longer tried to hide from him. _On the table, want you inside, already so wet, an image of him trailing the head of his shaft over her lips, his tongue against her clit, her skirts flipped up as he sank into her._  
  
Renn wasted no time. He pulled her back into his arms, his lips crushed to hers, then trailing over her neck, one hand in her hair, the other massaging her breast through her bodice. She grinded herself against him, pulling at the fabric of her skirts so that there would be less keeping them apart, gasping when she succeeded and she could feel the increased heat of their most intimate parts pressing together.  
  
 _Oh Creator, Renn, yes, just there, get this dress off of me, an image of Elspeth riding him on the table, his nails digging into her hips._  
  
Renn stood, pulling Elspeth up with him, then turned them so that it was he who stood with the backs of his thighs against the sturdy oak table. Elspeth pulled at the front fastenings of his robes, her thoughts feral and delighted when she found he wore nothing beneath them, and he pulled her skirt up and her bloomers down, both of them too impatient to disrobe completely.  
  
And then Elspeth pushed him back onto the table, and climbed on top of him, her knees on either side of his hips as she sank down, taking him in slowly, inch by inch, both of them moaning with the pleasure of it. Renn struggled to remain still, to keep from bucking, knowing from her thoughts that Elspeth needed a moment to adjust to the intensity of the feeling. She was so tight and hot around him, he could barely think, could barely comprehend her thoughts, which had become red flashes of incoherent lust.  
  
Then she started to move, her eyes sinking closed as she rolled her hips in slow circles, then slowly, ever so slowly riding him, her thoughts filled with sex, words of her love for him and the feel of him inside her. It was exquisite and maddening and enough to turn any man into a whimpering mass of pleas, made even more so by the stream of thought flowing between them. She ran her nails over his chest, and he gasped, bucking up, making her keen his name, his eyes glued to her heaving breasts still trapped in her bodice, the flush of her cheeks, her lips swollen from kissing him. Seeking to even the odds, and bring her even greater pleasure, Renn reached with one hand to rub his thumb over her clit as she rode him, knowing the instant he found just the right angle from her strangled moan and her silent _Yesyesyesyes_.  
  
They teased and tormented one another until their lust was at a fever pitch, a thing turned from desire to need, to must have, to an animalistic craze that neither could deny. She wanted to be dominated, wanted a man that could match her, and Renn gave her that, gripping her hips and forcing her to move faster, arching up to meet her every thrust, grunting at the sound of flesh meeting flesh.  
  
He came first, his eyes fluttering shut, a gasp torn from his lips. She followed seconds after with one final hard rub to her clit, and Renn was smug that she screamed his named both aloud and in her thoughts.  
  
She rolled off of him, and they laid on the table together, her head pillowed on his chest.  
  
 _Mother was right. His powers do make him an excellent lover._  
  
Kahlan and Elspeth had speculated on his sexual prowess? Renn decided not to remark on it. It wasn’t really something he wanted to think about.  
  
“I love you,” Elspeth told him, a tiny hint of fear in her voice that was dwarfed by the shades of terror that ran through her thoughts.  
  
“I know,” Renn answered, waggling his brows as he used to when he was teasing her as a young girl.  
  
She slapped his chest with the back of her hand, and laughed brightly, her thoughts filled with sunshine once more, as Renn knew they would be.  
  
“I love you too, Princess Elspeth,” he said on the tail of her laughter, just so there would be no doubts between them. She kissed him with a tenderness that was possible only after slaking the ardor that had been building between them for years, taking them both by surprise.  
  
They righted their clothes, and Renn did the job he came to do, Listening to the Mord’Sith as Elspeth questioned them.  
  
The next day, he presented his findings before a full court, Richard and Kahlan seated upon their thrones and Elspeth wearing her circlet and standing to their right. The hall swarmed with thoughts, Kahlan’s of grandchildren and weddings, and the graveness of the matter before them, Richard’s of rage that Renn had used a Rada Han on his daughter warring with his happiness that she had found what she never thought she could, Kahlan swearing him to secrecy so that Elspeth would not know Kahlan had shared her daughter’s confidences, an image of the Sword of Truth held to Renn’s groin making the blood go cold in Renn’s veins. He gulped.  
  
Richard smiled at him.  
  
And then there were the voices of the soldiers, the Mord’Sith, the nobles in attendance, all their thoughts combining to a droning in the back of Renn’s skull, a cacophony he could never escape from. One noble was cheating on his wife, a soldier was cheating at cards, and a little page boy was full of such hero worship for the Seeker that he might burst. The thoughts tumbled over one another, building up into one of the headaches that plagued the Listener from time to time – the reason he had kept the Rada Han all these years.  
  
And then he looked at Elspeth and all the other voices fell away.  
  
Silenced by her smile.


End file.
